ap english...what the heck....

<p>Our teacher gave us a study guide with 122 questions on Frankenstein and assigned us the novel plus all of the criticisms totaling 370 or some odd pages to read on thursday and wrote....book, criticisms, questions due tuesday......Is this really necessary? Her questions are like "How much time passed between chapter x and chapter y" or "what religion was this character?" and they are completely useless...</p>

<p>is this common for ap english because its really irritating me because the teacher doesn't even know the answers to the questions...she justs nods her head at whatever kids say......</p>

<p>Well, even if it's not for ap english, I'd do it for her test. My teacher gave out a similar study guide with the scarlet letter and her test questions were basically even harder than that, so it was good to know her study guide straight. That sucks though, good luck</p>

<p>We dont have any homework for our AP Lit class.. Just need to discuss the books in class... Some of the kids dont speak up at all and the lowest grade they get would be a B-.. We have a great teacher :)</p>

<p>Yeah, my english teacher is crazy. No disrespect, but she just has something wrong with her. Our homework starts, "read pages 1-61." Then we have to write 5 essays about different editorials that support certain arguments. She assigned it to use a week in advance, but we had similar homework assignments due every day before too, so it was basically a one-day assignment. Seriously, crazy.</p>

<p>Hm. Sounds like busy work to me- those sound more like Honors or College Prep questions. </p>

<p>We mostly have a week to read 50 or so pages of a book, then we discuss it in class. But we're often reading more than one book at once, so it works out. I don't get any homework, however... except for vocab. I think that makes the class harder because our grades depend entirely on tests/essays.</p>

<p>That study guide sounds crazy... Those sound like literal comprehension questions, which might be good for reinforcing understanding of plot, but are pretty useless otherwise. My AP English teacher occasionally gives us reading quizzes that test our reading comprehension, but otherwise, we focus more on analysis and interpretation. </p>

<p>In fact, we just don't have tests in English. Not counting midterms, I can't remember the last time I had a "test" in English. Our grades depend mostly on papers.</p>

<p>Reading 50 pages is day or more is something you have to expect in AP Literature or English.</p>

<p>I truly and completely believe that my english teacher would like to kill me. The Grapes of Wrath (600+ pages), finish by thursday (got it this friday), a paper on Macbeth, reading Macbeth every day, this week we'll be having a quiz every day. Last week we had a test which was 25 mc, 20 vocabulary, 2 fill-in charts with quotes, and a 5 paragraph essay, all to be done within 45 minutes.</p>

<p>Oh yes, I forgot, this is HONORS englsh</p>

<p>nothing you can do about it. Ask a previous student for help (answers)
In my AP Eng, we don't do anything but sit around and talk about random stuff</p>

<p>Eh in college lit we read one book every weekend, discuss it the next week. Quizes are brutal - their not about plot and such, but really ask about the underlying themes/roles of characters...blah i h8 reading</p>

<p>The final exam is 100/120 points and only like 3 kids got an A...(if you get >100 points, their added to the quarter)</p>

<p>Wait a sec.. AP classes are COLLEGE LEVEL CLASSES. I have no idea why you guys are complaining about college level work. If you guys do not want to be challenged and take a college level class, then drop out. The workload you guys are posting up is usual amount of homework for any AP English class (with the exception for the guy whose taking honors... your workload is just suicidal for honors english).</p>

<p>none of my other 5 APs were a lot of work though....ap bio is close but calc was a cake walk, chem was minimal, physics was hard but no work, and history was average.....big assignments aren't my school's thing...oh and to add to our study guide she gave us a 20 page packet of vocab words that she says are "fair game" to test us on whenever she wants (could be tomorrow, could be last day of class...she won't tell)</p>

<p>There seems to be a greater frequency of crazy English teachers as of compared to teachers in other academic classes. I wonder why? :)</p>

<p>haha I've noticed that too. I guess I'll just walk up to my eng teacher and ask "So uh, why are all of you English people crazy?" Actually my chem teacher during class randomly started talking about how the english teachers are crazy. That was amusing.</p>

<p>MrxPenguin, I think a lot of people are complaining about the busywork given out in their AP English class. I think vocab lists and study guides asking plot questions are more suitable for honors and college prep English classes than AP. I mean, while the basics are important, in my class, they're sort of things that you should be figuring out for yourself on your own. My teacher would scoff at the idea of giving out vocab lists.</p>

<p>Wow, I'm glad my AP English class has no busywork in it.</p>

<p>We just finished our second research paper and 8th or 9th play this year, and now we're beginning a unit on novels beginning with Toni Morrison's Beloved. After each novel or play, we just write an AP Prompt using that novel as our subject, and sometimes have a test. It's my favorite class of the day.</p>

<p>as an update, now she wants us to go back and write a SUMMARY for every chapter/criticism...a summary and this is AFTER we already had the test...this is the most busy work ever....she assigned the day after we already tested.....I was so ****ed...I came so close to flipping out on her.....I could see reactions to things, but summaries after its been read and tested and everything....</p>

<p>Oh wow, that is insane. My AP English Lit teacher is known for being really demanding, but we almost never have homework. All of our grades are based on in-class AP practice essays, AP MC practice tests, annotations, didja-read-the-book objective tests, and the occasional take home essay. </p>

<p>To some posters above, duh AP is supposed to be college level, but last time I checked, that meant college-level work, not simply loads-of-busywork. Honestly, those questions are not college level. Maybe it is neccesary for you to know them in order to begin to analyze a work on a college level, but I would assume it should be a given that you know those things-- i.e., make the student responsible for knowing them. I thought "college-level" inherently meant no-more-spoonfeeding!</p>

<p>P.S.-- Luwain, Morrison's Beloved is delicious!</p>

<p>Yeah, I really like it so far. We're taking a lot of time on this one. It's my teacher's favorite. ^_^</p>

<p>Oy! (this is stowmom's d) Alright. My junior year of AP English had a research paper. This research paper (on literary criticism, might I add) had to be at least 20 pages, required a 7-pg outline, 300 note cards, 20 sources (either from the LRC or some college's library), and had to be in perfect MLA format.
My paper was 35 pages long, with a 12-pg bibliography, using over 300 note cards. That was the end of last school year. We still haven't gotten them back.
Currently, we're doing somewhere around 3 novels (we never officially end any of them), taking practice AP tests out the butt, and writing essays in between.
Plus my teacher's a vampire, or something like that. She only sleeps like two hours, because she's too busy grading or reading literary criticism.</p>